I'll Cry if I Want To
by Don't Believe a Word
Summary: [ Pre-RENT ] Mark's birthday brings a visitor (who, for the record, is not an original character) and a series of events that would leave anybody traumatized. Note the humor.
1. Comedy of Errors

**Title:** I'll Cry if I Want To  
**Fandom:** RENT.  
**Pairings:** Mark/Maureen, Roger/April, I guess.

**Notes and Disclaimer: **I once said that I couldn't write anything humorous and that I'd stick to drama. Now that I've given it a shot and all of my deeper stuff comes out soap opera-ish, I'm taking another whack at comedy. This one has even less plot than 'There Was This Girl,' which is, by the way, on hiatus until (a) _a certain person send a certain slashy story to my inbox_ and (b) I know where I want to go with it. This is meant solely to give my Mark an awful, awful day and will be short, in either two or three parts. Characters are purposely out-of-character, and my PriorWalter(!) Roger makes a triumphant return. I hope you enjoy it.

I still don't own anything, so please don't sue.

* * *

"Hey." A pause. "Hey." Silence. "_Hey!_" 

A very not-awake Mark Cohen groaned into his pillow as he hugged his sheets around himself and turned over in bed, away from the voice that was attempting to pluck him out of his rather pleasant dream and toss him down into the loud, sweltering Hell that was his home in the summertime.

"Wakey wakey, hands off snakey... Shit; I can't believe I just said that."

No response from the comfortable sleeper.

"Come on, Mark. Seize the day. Wake up and smell the... whatever the fuck it is you drink. Herbal tea. Up at at 'em."

Not even so much as a snore.

"Whatever. Dickhead." Even when talking to a nearly catatonic tangle of sheets and limbs, Roger found it necessary to antagonize his listener. Or non-listener, depending on the perspective. "I was trying to be nice, but I guess that just doesn't work for you, huh, Mark? I've got to be a bastard, right?"

When the sleeping blonde's only response was the very slightest flutter of eyelids, Roger leaned down over his friend and yanked his sheet away in one foul swoop before throwing himself at a groggy, but now suddenly awake Mark, knocking into him hard enough to send his mattress skidding a few inches across the floor.

What ensued was about half a minute of swearing and struggling from Mark, laughter and playful hits from his assailant. Only when Mark was secured rather awkwardly in a half-shoulder lock with a knee uncomfortably pinning one leg twisted did the startled victim chill out and stop his struggle, lest he turn the wrong way and snap his neck or his ankle. He scowled, though, up at a grinning and triumphant roommate, who, much to his surprise, was already dressed to go out.

"What the Hell was that for, Roger?" he demanded, cringing when Roger's free hand roughly mussed up his hair, which was already at all odd angles out of sleep.

"You're not sleeping today away is what that was for. Dude, it's three o'clock."

"But I got in late last n-"

"Well, you'll be up late tonight, too, so you had better get started." For a minute, it seemed as if Roger was going to kindly remove himself from on top of his frazzled friend, but a menacing smirk quickly claimed his face as he sat back, but only a little. "But first... hold still, and this won't hurt as much." Much to Mark's horror, he could see, even without his glasses, his friend ball his right hand into a fist and draw it back before it came rushing towards him, hitting him right off the center of his chest.

"One."

Mark gasped, audibly, and fished around to get his wind back.

"Two."

Wash, rinse, and repeat, but to the shoulder this time.

"Three, four..."

With each consecutive punch, Mark whined and wriggled and groaned and squirmed to get away, despite recommendation to the contrary from Roger. For the longest time, he couldn't possibly imagine why his best friend had pulled him out of bed against his will only to beat the living Hell out of him, but as the count approached fourteen and fifteen, the idea began to click.

"... Sixteen aaaaand seventeen."

"I-"

Bam.

"And one for good luck." Grinning broadly, Roger jumped back off of Mark before the aching boy had a chance to recover and try to retaliate, but not before tapping him twice on the cheek, earning a groan and a pout from him.

"Aww. Whassematter, Markie? Too hard?"

"Yes!" Mark squeaked, reluctantly pulling himself into a sitting position and hugging his arms around himself. "And they're supposed to go to the arms, Roger, not to the ch-"

"Well, the times, they are a-changin'; you're a man now, my friend, as long as you stay in the state of New York. You've got to be able to take a few lousy birthday punches." He was sure to add, just for effect, a very Mark-ish break on the word 'man.'

"Not yet." Sitting there in fish boxer shorts and a white undershirt yet still somehow not filling out his clothes, hair beyond help, and a petulant sort of scowl plastered to his lips, Mark Cohen, despite having crossed that invisible line between adolescence and adulthood, was still looking (and sounding) very much a boy, as his loving friend and roommate delighted in pointing out. "Not until 10:37 tonight, technically."

"Who cares? They're not going to know."

"Who's not going to know?"

"You'll see. Get dressed."

"No. Wait, I-"

A flying tank top interrupted Mark's interruption when it whizzed across the room and landed on top of his head.

"Score. Now hurry up and get dressed so we can leave," Roger demanded, tossing Mark a pair of jeans while he seemed to survey the room.

"Roger."

"What?"

"Where are we going, and... and what did you do to my pants?" The garment in question, the would-be pants held up in Mark's hand, while they hadn't been painted or bleached or Sharpied all over, were, in fact, no longer pants, but crudely hacked cutoff shorts, frayed and choppy at the ends and quite a bit too short, to end all.

The sinister musician could barely contain a smirk at the sight of Mark in his new shorts and Roger's beater; only if he had been in leather straps and nothing else could the pale, reedy Mark manage to look less natural. "I was doing you a favor; it's going to be a fucking Hellhole where we're going, and since you don't have any shorts, I made you a pair. Happy Birthday."

"No way." Mark, dressed as he was, had acquired the habit of pulling down on the ends of his shorts, hoping to cover a bit more skin, more likely than not. "I can't really go out looking like a..." He trailed off, blood creeping in to color his face in his hesitation.

"Like a...?"

"Stripper."

"Mark!" An overjoyed Roger promptly attacked his friend's head with a tube of gel and a comb, masterfully fixing his hair in a matter of seconds before ushering him towards the ladder to escape their bedroom. "I'm surprised."

Bewildered at Roger's sudden burst of energy, Mark hurried down the ladder and towards the kitchen, only to be dragged over to the couch, where his tattered shoes were waiting for him. "What do you mean?"

"I didn't think you'd catch on."

"Didn't think I'd catch on to...what, exactly?"

"The stripper thing, dumbass. How'd you guess?"

* * *

"Maaarkie, I really don't care. It's your birthday, baby! It's okay, I know how it is." A very tipsy Maureen giggled and hiccoughed between words, lazily throwing her arm around her not-quite-so tipsy boyfriend as he profusely stumbled through apologies for having let Roger "drag him" to a cramped, sleazy, and as he had been warned, absolutely sweltering strip club in an introduction to the nastiness of the adult world. 

"Really, Maureen; I'm so sorry. I swear I didn't... you know... I didn't-"

"Touch?"

"Right, I didn't-"

"Damn, boy! Why not? I would have!" Knocking back yet another shot, Maureen turned her attention from the blushing birthday boy and towards Roger, who, along with April and Collins, was reclining between the milk crates that served as chairs, sloppily filling shot glasses and passing around an expertly-rolled joint that was giving the open room a very distinct odor. "Roger!"

"Huh?"

"Why'd you take him-" indicating Mark, who was nursing his drink much slower than the rest of the small party, "-and then not tell him to have fun? You asshole!"

"I didn't! ...Did... Whatever!" Roger hoisted himself off the floor and made his way over to Mark, taking the bottle out of his hand and replacing it with the cigarette that he had taken for his own, helping himself to his buddy's drink while making sure that Mark took a hit of the marijuana that Collins had so kindly supplied for the occasion. "He had fun. He had fun! Look: when's Mark gone and gotten all high and stuff without being scared to Hell?"

Laying off the chemicals for a minute, Mark grinned sheepishly and shrugged his shoulders, crossing his arms over his chest. "I'm not high."

"You're gonna be."

"I'm not _high_, Roger. I've never been high!"

Collins and April exchanged knowing glances, solemnly shaking their heads before going back to making a xylophone out of variously filled shot glasses.

"Mark, Mark, Mark: you're gonna be so fucking messed up. You're gonna, like... I don't know. You're gonna be puking up whatever you drink, but you're gonna be seeing things, so there're gonna be crazy elephants and shit watching you." Giggling, Roger held his joint to his lips, stopped when he realized that he didn't, in fact, have it on him, as Mark was still rather enjoying it, then burst out into complete laughter, obviously either cracking himself up or finding the image of elephants in their bedroom pretty hilarious.

Even Mark, who, like most people, was not too keen on vomiting on his birthday, grinned at the idea, giggling lightly even with the cigarette balanced over his lower lip. "Elephants? Really?"

"Sure. _Pink_ elephants."

"I think you'd look good in pink, baby," Maureen added, needing to find her way back into the conversation, tugging on the tank top Mark had earlier borrowed from his roommate. "You should find this in pink, you know?"

"Roger," the mildly goofy boy began, turning twice around to find Roger, who had seated himself on the couch, and taking one last drag on the cigarette before Maureen plucked it out of his hold, "Do you have a pink one of these?"

"They don't make pink _weed_, Mark. God, you're dumb."

"No. I don't need- The shirt, I mean."

"How the Hell am I supposed to know? I'll check, since it's your birthday, but stop asking dumb questions!" Seeing Mark's face fall, the quite-trashed Roger heaved a sigh and held out the hand that wasn't still holding Mark's beer. "Fine, fine. Don't cry, geez. Give me that one, then."

Immediately lighting back up again, Mark began to wriggle out of his borrowed shirt, having way too much trouble with it, considering that it had no sleeves and offered plenty of places to escape; he probably would have been able to pull himself through the sleeve without getting caught, but throwing the unfamiliar mix of beer and marijuana, there seemed no escape for the young artist.

"Maureen," he whimpered, knocking his elbows together as two arms got tangled through the same sleeve. "Help me!"

Maureen just stared and laughed, attempting to blow smoke circles but succeeding only in producing a cloud of bitter smoke around her. Some girlfriend.

"Never fear!" Collins, who had been up to that point very content to kick back and nurse a drink, exclaimed, hopping to his feet and steadily -for Collins, experienced as he was, could stay relatively sober much longer than his experimenting friends- making his way over to the struggling Mark. "Stay still, Mark, and you'll be free in no time." Wrapping one arm around Mark's waist, Collins effortlessly lifted him and flipped his legs over his shoulders, leaving the boy literally hanging, his fingertips not quite at the floor. Though he squirmed and whined, one tug from Collins and the offending garment came right off, earning whistles and cheers and alcohol-laced laughter all around. "See? You could have done that in the first place." Pleased with himself, the hero rearranged Mark so that he was cradling him, planted an obnoxious kiss on his cheek, and proceeded to drop him onto the couch, which groaned and slumped under his weight.

"Roger, here," Collins said, turning to the grinning musician and tossing his shirt back at him. "And I _know_ you've got that in pink."

"I'll get it, I'll get it," Roger whined, turning from the scene and towards the ladder leading to the room that he and Mark shared. "You guys are so pissy tonight." Needless to say, he tripped quite a few times before finally disappearing into their bedroom, much to the shaking of Collins' head against the milk crate where he had again taken up lounging around.

"Markie…"

Now, Maureen's sudden interest in her boyfriend could have stemmed from any number of things. Perhaps she felt a twinge of guilt at having spent more time getting drunk than cuddling with Mark. Maybe she was worried that, if someone wasn't talking to him, he was going to pass out and sleep the remaining hours of his birthday away. It's possible that, at one point or another, she had some sort of intelligent comment to make, but taken that she was Maureen and very under the influence, probably not. Most likely, it was the fact that Mark was stretched out on his back, mellow and hot and dressed in nothing but the shorts that a careless Roger had hacked too short that caught Maureen's attention.

"You're so cute!"

Gracelessly making herself comfortable on top of Mark, who grunted lightly at the new weight, Maureen wasted no time in burying her hands in Mark's hair and sticking it straight up and out in a mix of sweat and gel, something she rather enjoyed before, during, and after sex, and at just about any other moment when she was looking to get something out of her complaisant boyfriend.

"So! Markie. What can I get you for your birthday, hm?"

"You and Collins already brought the stuff, Maureen. Didn't you?"

"Well, yeah, but that's for all of us. What about for just me and you?"

"Aw, I don't need anything, Maureen. It's okay," Mark replied, smiling gently and resting his arms across her back. "I'm fine."

"No, really! Come on, baby; there's got to be something."

"No, I don't need anything, Maur-"

Obviously frustrated with Mark's cluelessness, Maureen took the situation into her own hands, quite literally, in fact, as she pressed one hand solidly against Mark's crotch and lifted his chin in the other, and kissed him resolutely, catching the boy by surprise and eliciting a squeak from him loud enough to alert Collins and April.

"Get a room!"

Not that something like that would stop Maureen; as Queen of Everything, she always got what she wanted, and at the moment, what she wanted was sex. Unfortunately, with Roger in Mark's room and Collins and April very much within earshot, making out was going to have to do. Generally speaking, Mark would have blushed awfully and shied away, but the lovely effects of controlled substances had him in their grasp, and he was, at the time, perfectly willing, though perhaps not entirely able to follow Maureen's lead.

"Damn." April giggled as she knocked a shot over and attempted to mop it up with one of the empty cardboard cases that had once been home to some of the beer bottles that were strewn around the room. "Mark's ballsy when he's trashed."

"Oh, he's not trashed," Collins replied, smirking contently and staring at the ceiling, rather than at the couple engaged in some heavy petting across the room. "If Mark were trashed, not even Maureen would be able to hold him down. Boy's a lunatic with more than a few drinks in him... until he's puking his insides out, of course."

"Really? 'Cause he's... that's like frigging clothed sex there."

"It's his party," the great philosopher offered, shrugging his shoulders and lighting a second cigarette, as Roger had apparently disappeared with the first. "But if Maureen's shirt comes off, I'm going upstairs. There are some things I just don't want to see."

"What about Mark's pants?"

"I'll stick around for that," Collins responded, grinning broadly, falling into laughter when April choked on her drink and slapped him. "Roger was very right in cutting up those shorts."

"Okay... wow." Supporting herself on one of the milk crates, a tipsy April carefully stood to her feet and smoothed out her skirt, giggling at the whoosh of blood in her ears and the teetering and tottering of the room around her. "You're just too weird now. I'm out of here; you ogling Mark is one of those things I don't want to see, and Roger's... I don't know where he went." Taking a roundabout way to the couch, April tapped Maureen on the shoulder, waved at her when she turned her attention away from Marks' mouth for a second or two, and then, laughing, kissed each of the two lovers. "Bye bye, you too. Happy birthday, Mark, and don't get too sick tomorrow, okay?"

"I.. uh- - yeah, okay. I won't," the birthday boy stammered, opening his eyes and trying to rub away the lipstick marks from his lips and cheek and just about everywhere else where skin was exposed, which, considering his shorts, was a lot.

"You're crazy," April sing-songed, shaking her head as she turned towards the door and heard the two behind her go right back to what they had been doing, completely oblivious to the door opening and closing and then opening again, to April's, "Whoa, I don't know you," between exiting and closing the door, to the 'oh shit' expression on Collins' face after the door re-opened, and, most importantly, to the startled gasp of a middle-aged woman and the drop of a plastic bag to the floor.

"Ahem. Maureen." Collins' voice, after a long silence, was anxious, something it almost never was, but even so, Maureen kept herself busy torturing a gasping Mark.

"Maureen. Mark. You two might want to-"

"Colli-" Mark began while trying to catch his breath, only to be cut off again by Maureen's mouth on his own.

"Mark!" Naturally, Roger chose to make his grand re-entrance here, slipping down the last three or four rungs of the ladder, pink tank top in hand and cigarette nowhere to be found, obviously flying higher than he had been when he first went on his search. More notably, he was down to his boxers and one of April's glittery tank tops, two different socks, and a pair of red sunglasses in his hair. "Look, I got it. I found this, Mark."

"That's okay, Roger," Maureen replied giggling, scooting up to sit on Mark's chest and watching Roger as he made his way towards the couch, swaying just a bit in his trip. "I don't think we'll need it now. Tomorrow, maybe."

"Fine." Roger groaned and tossed the pink shirt behind him, ringing an empty bottle of vodka, then grudgingly dragged himself to the edge of the couch and seated himself heavily in Mark's lap, _much_ to the squirming and whimpering of the disheveled-looking blonde. Luckily enough, Roger was much too messed up to notice anything that could possibly be making Mark blush so hotly.

"Er, Roger... Could you-"

"I got to tell you, Mark," Roger interrupted, gently stroking one of Mark's shins, eyeing him sleepily, "You've definitely got the legs for those shorts."

"Uh... thank you, I think..."

"I mean, look! Collins, what do you think? Don't you think it looks good?" Collins was too busy being silently dumbfounded to reply, so Roger turned his attention to the shocked woman standing near the open door, the woman who had gone unnoticed by Maureen because she had her back to the door and unnoticed to Mark because Maureen was in his way. "You think so, right? I mean, look: so fucking cute."

"Roger, who the Hell are you talking to?" Maureen turned over one shoulder, then right back to Mark, confusion written all across her face. "There's someone staring at you, pookie."

"What?" Groggily, Mark fixed his glasses, which, in all of his vigorous movement, had been pushed up into his hair, and struggled to lean over the side of the couch to see just what everyone else was staring at. It took a good ten seconds to register, but when the all-too familiar figure clicked somewhere in his sex-focused, alcohol-laden, marijuana-laced mind, all color drained from his face, which had been flushed significantly from the mix of the three. His blue eyes widened behind his glasses, his hands started to shake, and when his full and proper name seemed to echo across the room, loud and angry in the woman's voice, Mark Cohen promptly fainted dead away.

* * *

**End Notes:** So? Get it? 

Review and make me very happy?


	2. Birthday Sex

**Chapter Two: **Birthday Sex

**Notes/ Disclaimer:** I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I've been very unmotivated to write lately, because 'There Was This Girl' is frustrating me beyond belief. Certain events have led me to be bitterly sarcastic and sex-minded, so you lovely people get a new chapter out of me. Please excuse the change in styles; this was written over a long while, and as I've said, I'm not fond of editing. I hope you enjoy it, anyway.

* * *

"Get off of my baby!" 

A brief, awkward silence followed Mark's passing out, but the ever-attentive woman by the door quickly swooped down upon the couch, dropping the bags she had been clutching to the floor and rushing across the room to where Roger and Maureen were staring, wide-eyed, at the crazy person who had just invaded their home.

"Get off him, get off him!"

Silence would have been preferable.

"Mark... Mark! Answer your mother, Markie!"

Maureen, finally grasping the situation, ran a hand back through her wild curls and shook her head, muttering, "Oh, shit," as she carefully slid off of Mark's chest and to the floor, slowly making her way to Collins, who was more likely than not trying to conjure up a believable excuse as to why the room reeked of pot and was littered with empty bottles. Roger, on the other hand, being normally disrespectful and high to boot, remained very much in place on top of Mark, watching curiously as his mother shook her boy by the shoulders and smoothed his hair.

"Sshh. What the Hell are you doing? He's asleep!" Roger hissed loudly, shoving lightly at the woman's shoulder in a valiant attempt to earn his friend some sleep. "You're gonna wake him up!"

Bad idea.

Before he could even close his mouth again, the madwoman spun around, her eyes glowing red, and backhanded a smirking Roger right across the face, rocking his head and sending a sickening 'crack' into the otherwise quiet loft.

"Do not talk back to me, you...you ... hooligan!" Mrs. Cohen shrieked, glaring hard at Roger before turning back to cradling her unconscious son's head to her chest.

"She broke my face!" the glittery Roger howled back, clutching his cheek and staggering away from the couch, tears in his eyes from the sheer force of the blow. "She broke my fucking face!"

"Watch your language!" Mark's mother shouted, spinning back around to face Roger and dragging Mark off the couch by his neck in the process. Roger immediately fell silent and shuffled himself over to Collins, sore and defeated and pouting darkly.

Between the shouting and the shaking and the falling off the couch, Mark was slowly coming to, though a squeaky little voice in the back of his head advised him to stay sleeping. For a while. For the next week or so. Perhaps a month, just to be safe. Disregarding that little voice, though, the good son opened his eyes with a groan and found himself staring directly up at the slightly blurry, yet unmistakable face of his mother.

"Mom?"

The angry bear that had been his mother for the past five minutes, at the word 'mom' melted away, and a small, melancholy smile replaced the hard scowl on the woman's face.

"There you are, Mark. Here, here... look at me... that's good." For a long, long moment, Mrs. Cohen appeared as if she was going to smother her son in kisses, pinch his cheeks, or burst into tears with the way she was staring at him, in a mixture of pride and pain. As quickly as the beast had gone, though, it made its return, and the bear raised her hand again, bringing her palm down square to Mark's temple.

"You! You! How could you do that to me, Mark? You see me and you faint now, is it? Is it? You nearly stopped your mother's poor, old heart, Mark Cohen! Killed by my own son, by my own child! How would that be?" Each exclamation, it seemed, was followed and/or preceded with a swift whack to the head, until Mark, rubbing the stars out of his eyes and swatting them out of his line of vision, scrambled to his feet, dazed and dizzy.

"W-wait, Mom, I...no, please-!" Even as he backed away, Mark was meekly fending off the back of his mother's hand, which was constantly about his face. She managed to knock his glasses off his nose and back him into a wall before the beating halted and Mrs. Cohen gasped, holding her bewildered son by the shoulder and staring, perhaps frightened.

"Mark... You're wasting away to nothing! Don't you eat?" For the time, the mother was very concerned with her child's welfare, dubbing him 'too skinny, much too thin,' and 'nothing but skin and bones-- and so pale, too!' As a matter of fact, between her poking of Mark's ribs, prodding of his collarbone, and pinching his arms, Mrs. Cohen managed to thoroughly confuse Roger, who was still nursing the side of his face.

"Damn... Maureen, aren't you going to tell her off?" he whispered, staring at mother and son while Mark squirmed and looked hopelessly to his friends for any measure of help. Maureen, for her part, just shook her head and flipped Roger off.

"It's a good thing that I came when I did, Mark, or you'd starve. You'll thank me later."

A beat.

"Mark Cohen!" Shaking the birthday boy by the shoulders again, Mark's mother held him at arm's length and looked him up and down, apparently horrified at something. "What are you doing going around the house dressed like _that_? You look like a- like a-"

"Stripper?" Roger offered meekly from behind Collins.

"Precisely!" Mrs. Cohen exclaimed, swatting Mark once in the cheek before holding him back again and examine his short shorts with a look of complete disdain. "Mark Cohen, I do not want you falling into this... this tasteless world of pornographic thoughts and lewd ideas! Honestly, Mark, you're a smart boy; you don't need things like this!"

Mark, in the meantime, was stunned silent, burning up to his ears, his inner prepubescent boy curling up and dying at the fact that, not only had his mother waited until he was out of the house to talk sex with him, but that she was doing so in front of his closest friends, while he was standing in nothing but a sorry excuse for a pair of shorts, caught completely off-guard and red-handed, making out with his girlfriend.

As if taking a cue from Mark's internal worries, a fuming Mark's Mom turned her attention to Maureen, who up until that point had been watching, mildly entertained and quite a bit confused, the awkward mother and son reunion unfolding before her eyes.

"And _you_!"

Collins and Roger wisely sidestepped their positions, moving out of Mrs. Cohen's direct line of charge as she barged over to Maureen.

"You! How _dare_ you lay your hands on my baby? To even think that my son could be corrupted enough to bend to your lascivious ways... I, I- It appalls me, absolutely appalls me that you would try to take advantage of my little boy, able to see full well that he is not interested and is too lamb-hearted to turn you away!"

Even mildly tipsy, Maureen had the good sense enough to be insulted. Her expression, which had been one of amused skepticism, fell sharply to a seething scowl, and the peeved diva pointed her finger straight at Mrs. Cohen's face, furrowing her brow and opening her mouth to speak before having her hand sharply slapped.

"Do not talk back to me, miss! What you were doing to my Mark is terrible and wrong, but believe me when I say that my child was brought up correctly; he is no woman's toy, and he knows better than to degrade himself in getting involved with harlots like you!"

"Oh, yeah?" Maureen spat back, daring to move right into the overprotective mother's face. "I wouldn't be so sure. Why don't you try telling that to his co-"

"Maureen..." Collins warned, tugging her gently by the arm, only to be forcibly pushed away.

"No! Listen, lady: I don't care what Mark was like at home under your fucking reign of terror, but I think I ought to let you know that your kid is just about as unresponsive to me as... as cabbies are to everyone , and whether or not you like to think it, your sweet, innocent little boy is pretty damn willing to come to bed with me."

Mother and son at that moment shared one more trait, in the stark whiteness of their faces.

"You wouldn't believe how hot he looks in handcuffs."

The dead silence that had fallen heavily on the room gave Maureen the perfect opportunity to spin her story to an attentive audience, and smirking horribly, she took it.

"And you know what else? He likes it. He's 'getting involved with a harlot like me every night'... sometimes more than every night, and he fucking likes it! In fact, if you hadn't shown up, we'd be having wild, passionate _sex_ right about now, and Markie'd be having the time of his life. How about that, huh?"

The silent occupants of the loft took a collective breath, all eyes -save Roger's, which were staring down in confusion at the glittery shirt he was wearing- glued to Maureen, who was triumphant, Mrs. Cohen, who was motionless, and Mark, who looked like he was about to fall to the floor dead. One could almost hear the poor woman's fuse burning down, could feel the explosion coming. Perhaps this is why Collins gently ushered Roger behind him.

But the explosion didn't come. Rather than twist and snap and give Maureen the tongue-lashing and smack across the face that she probably deserved, Mark's mother, staring off into space, turned slowly away from the smirking Maureen and dragged herself like a cripple to the couch, where she sat in complete disregard for the grime and the coils and the lumps, turning small, slow, confused hand gestures not unlike Mark's defensive waving of his own hands.

"This is what he does to me?" she murmured to no-one in particular, staring past the puzzled youths whose attention she had captured. "My own son... he does this to me? I come to wish him another happy birthday, to see that he's well, that he's not starving or ill or hurt, and all can do is kiss with this _goy kurveh_ and whimper and stare at me."

"Mom, I.." Mark, summoning up any and all courage he possessed, carefully approached his mother, vaguely feeling that he was walking to certain doom by the time he was standing beside her, completely ignored.

"And now this? Now my little son is sleeping with this woman, too? He's so willingly handed himself over? Where did I go wrong? I tried my best to raise him well, and as soon as he leaves home, he succumbs to a life of bad decisions and debauchery? The leaving the school was one thing, but now my baby is going to have children?"

"Whoa- wait. Hold on," Maureen added, failing to interrupt Mrs. Cohen's diatribe. "We're not going to have-"

"He's too young to be a father; he's only a child! Please, God, help my poor, misguided son to see the error in his impure actions and bring back the good little boy that I know still exists beneath the man costume he's put on for this dangerous woman."

Mark, in the meantime, had seated himself on the floor at his mother's feet, pulled his knees up to his chest, and buried his head in his arms, his nose about to bleed from the sheer amount of blood that had rushed to his face as his mother attacked his behaviour, his girlfriend, and his soon-to-be nonexistent sex life. When she noticed him like this, Mrs. Cohen slipped from her empty pleas to God and smoothed her son's stubborn hair down across his forehead, smiling as mothers smile when they know that they've won at the expense of their children's thoughts.

"You don't have to worry, Mark," she cooed, standing to her feet and gently pulling Mark to his. "You're going to be okay, even with her mistakes. You're a good boy."

"But Mom, I-"

"Ah ah. Sh. I think it's time that we got to bed. We can talk about this in the morning, when you're better rested. So, if you don't mind-"

"Mrs. Cohen," Collins interjected, crossing to mother and son with a genial smile on his face. "If you're going to be staying the night with us, feel free to have my bed; there's nobody in my room right now, and I'll gladly sleep on the couch."

"No thank you, young man, " she replied, obviously pleased with Collins' air of politeness. "I think that I should stay with Mark tonight."

Mark bawked.

"But I'm sure that his lady-friend wouldn't mind a bed to herself tonight. "

Maureen, visibly pissed off, shot an angry look at Collins, who wisely ignored her, then to Roger, who threw his hands up before he could be blamed for anything.

"So, come on, dear. You don't want to get sick after being up so late."

When he realized through Collins' sympathetic glance that he wasn't going to get out of it, Mark hung his head and started towards the ladder that would take him to his room. "Night, guys," he sighed, waving weakly and climbing up, his mother yapping away behind him at how he needed to re-think his life, find something to do with himself, etcetera.

As soon as Mark and his mother disappeared beneath the curtain, Maureen launched on a hissed tirade, stomping and gesticulating wildly while Collins shushed her and Roger kicked a (nearly) empty beer can across the room. She didn't have much time to whine, though, as a horrible scream and a thud from upstairs interrupted any and all conversation.

"Mark Cohen! How could you?"

The thud immediately followed.

"Roger! What did you do?" Mark howled, amidst much shuffling around upstairs.

"Go to Hell! I didn't do anything!"

Biting his lip to conceal a grin, Collins shook his head and rubbed his temple with two fingers; for once, he was at fault for Mark's problems. See, while Roger had introduced Mark to the wonders of sleazy strip clubs, Maureen, April, and Collins had... decorated the room Mark and Roger shared with certain photos and posters that would go along with the strip club theme. Evidently, when Roger had gone to get changed, he hadn't the sense to hide the evidence, and Mrs. Cohen had entered her son's room to be greeted with dozens pictures of naked women and one or two naked men.

* * *

The wee hours of the next morning found Mrs. Cohen asleep next to a very much awake Mark, who had been engaged with Roger in their unique form of wordless communication, a mixture of hand gestures, expressions, blinks, and mouthed words, for the better part of the night. The general idea of this conversation was that Mark, who swore he'd never get laid again, was sleeping with his mother, who thought he was still ten. 

The so-called decorations had been slashed down and replaced with pictures of Mark, which his mother so kindly supplied from one of many photo albums she had brought with her. This happened only after Mark and Roger had received a severe verbal reprimand and intense beatings around the heads and shoulders.

Come breakfast -at which everyone ate together, of course,- Mark's mother seemed a whole new person, glad to prepare food for her son and his friends, who, according to her analysis of them, were not eating nearly enough. Ignoring the fact that Maureen was still seething, that Mark and Roger were splotched black and blue, and all of the "children" were in varying stages of hung over, she disclosed way more information about her view of Mark's childhood than anyone present, including Mark, wanted to hear.

When, early the next evening, Mrs. Cohen kissed her son goodbye, made him swear that he would call more frequently, and finally left the loft bound for Scarsdale, Mark immediately collapsed into Collins, shaking and sobbing over how scared he was that she'd never leave, that Maureen was going to leave him, that he felt so sick, that his mother might return with his father in tow. Collins, very used to this sort of thing, petted his hair and assured him that if any more Cohen's showed up at their door, he'd shove Mark out onto the fire escape and blatantly deny his existence, period.

Mark's biggest fear, that Maureen, disgusted and insulted, would pack up and leave, was mollified when Maureen caught him in the shower and hurried him upstairs for hours of mind-blowing sex to make up for the birthday sex that they hadn't shared the night before, as it would have been difficult to even get started with one's mother in the bed.

Needless to say, it was the best sex Mark ever had.

And they all lived happily ever after.

The end.

* * *

**  
End Notes:** Have fun? Please review? 

I want to write something darker now. Something Roger/Mark. But if I do, I know I'll get melodramatic and mawkish. Oh well. We'll see.


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